Phoenix
"You're about to deal with forces you can't possibly comprehend." —'Jean, when she's the first one in the line-up' "Think that was bad? It could have been much worse. Much." '' ---'''Jean's winning quote' "I've destroyed whole planets. So what chance have you got?" —'Jean's winning quote (in her Dark Phoenix form)' Backstory Jean Grey was the younger daughter of Professor John Grey of the History Department of Bard College in Annandale-on-Hudson, New York, and his wife Elaine. When Jean was 10 years old, she was playing with her best friend, Annie Richardson, when Annie was hit by an automobile. The emotion that Jean felt as she held her dying friend awakened her own latent telepathic powers, and she experienced Annie's own emotions as she died. This traumatic event left Jean in a withdrawn and deeply depressed state. Moreover, Jean discovered that she couldn't control her newly awakened telepathic abilites, and had to isolate herself from other people to keep hold of her sanity. Finally, when Jean was 11, a psychiatrist recommended to her parents that they consult a colleague of his, Professor Charles Xavier (Professor X), who was secretly a mutant with telepathic powers. Xavier realizes that Jean's young mind cannot yet cope with her abilities, so he telepathically blocks her access to them, allowing her powers to evolve at a more natural pace. Jean develops her telekinetic powers at the age of 10. As a teenager, Jean leaves her parents to attend Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters and, using the codename "Marvel Girl", becomes the first female X-Man, joining the team on its first mission against Magneto. With the X-Men, she battles the team's earliest and most enduring threats, including Magneto's Brotherhood of Evil Mutants, the Juggernaut, and the Sentinels. While Jean and Scott are having a romantic evening in Manhattan, she, Wolverine, and Banshee, are abducted by Sentinels. They are taken to an abandoned S.H.I.E.L.D. orbital platform under the command of the anti-mutant activist Steven Lang, who is plotting to unleash a new generation of Sentinels. The other X-Men, with the aid of Dr. Peter Corbeau, rescue them. During the space station's destruction, the X-Men find that their shuttle has been damaged in an earlier fight with the Sentinels. The X-Men decide that someone must stay at the controls and pilot the ship, while everyone else remains in the shuttle's heavily-shielded life cell. Knowing no one else could survive long enough to pilot the shuttle to safety, Jean uses her telepathy on Dr. Corbeau to learn how to pilot the shuttle and her telekinesis to block the radiation as she pilots the ship back to Earth. Her telekinetic shields give way under the onslaught of the intense radiation. The strain of holding the solar radiation at bay with her powers destroys the psychic shields Xavier placed in her mind as a child, and Jean assumes her ultimate potential as a psychic, becoming an entity of pure thought. The shuttle crashes into a bay, and Jean telekinetically reforms her body and emerges from the water. Taking the code name of Phoenix, Jean's psi-powers are now vastly stronger, and she manifests a fiery bird-shaped energy aura whenever she uses her powers to their fullest extent. Phoenix healed the M'Kraan Crystal to keep the universe from being destroyed. In "The Dark Phoenix Saga", Mastermind a.k.a. Jason Wyngarde tampers with Jean's mind, convincing her she's a Victorian aristocrat (and the Black Queen of the Hellfire Club) and that he is her husband. She turns on her friends, but then loses control of her emotions and becomes the Dark Phoenix, attacking her friends and teammates and destroying a populated solar system's star. Jean regains her sanity long enough to commit suicide rather than risk becoming the Dark Phoenix again and killing anyone else. After killing herself on the moon, Jean's soul awakens in the afterlife and is dressed in a White Phoenix costume. Death greets Jean and tries to help her understand the Phoenix before fragments of her soul are sent back to Earth. Years later, the Avengers find a strange pod lying on the bottom of Jamaica bay, which they send to Reed Richards of the Fantastic Four. The pod cracks open and Jean emerges, with no memories from the time she flew the shuttle until she hatched from the cocoon, but the truth of Phoenix is now revealed. While dying upon the shuttle, Jean was, in fact, approached by a cosmic psionic entity known as the Phoenix Force, which duplicated Jean's form and merged with a portion of her soul/consciousness, while Jean herself was sealed in a pod at the bottom of the bay to heal. It was the Phoenix Force which became the Dark Phoenix and committed those evil actions, hence Jean was absolved of them and went on to found X-Factor with her original X-Men teammates. They would all eventually return to the newly reformed team, which was split into two separate ones--Blue and Gold. Jean eventually came into contact with Rachel Summers, her daughter from an alternate timeline, who not only possessed her powers, but her inherent connection to the Phoenix Force. Jean initially rejected Rachel because of this, as she felt Rachel's existence was a constant reminder of the dark future she came from and feared could still come to pass. However, Jean would eventually reconcile with Rachel and welcomed her into her life permanently. Shortly after, she and Scott were finally married. In-Game Story Phoenix's role in the in-game story has not been revealed as yet. Furthermore, Jean is physically deceased in the current comic book continuity, but she is back in the Age of X series which was issued in January 2011. Although it is heavily implied that she has been reborn as Hope Summers, the 'Mutant Messiah' from X-Men: Messiah Complex and X-Men: Second Coming. Powers and Abilities An Omega Level mutant, Jean Grey is one of the most powerful women alive. Her telepathy allows her read, influence, control, and communicate with the minds of others, project her mind into the astral plane, and generate telepathic force blasts that can stun or kill others. Jean is one of the few telepaths skilled enough to communicate with animals (animals with high intelligence, such as dolphins, dogs and ravens). She can also telepathically take away or control people's natural bodily functions and senses, such as sight, hearing, smell, taste, or even mutant powers. Her telekinetic strength and skill are both of an extremely high level, capable of grasping objects in Earth orbit and manipulating hundreds of components in mid-air in complex patterns. She uses her telekinesis to often lift herself and others giving her the ability of levitation and flight. She also uses her telekinesis to create durable shields and energy blasts and also to excite heat molecules to generate heat, light and thermal blasts. She later manifests a "telekinetic sensitivity" (called "the Manifestation of the Phoenix") to objects in her immediate environment that lets her feel the texture of objects, their molecular patterns, feel when other objects come into contact with them, and probe them at a molecular level. When possessed by or bonded with the Phoenix Force, Jean's powers escalate to an incalculable level, allowing her to rearrange matter at a subatomic level, fly unaided through space, survive in any atmosphere, manipulate electromagnetic and cosmic energies for various effects and atmospheric disturbances. She also demonstrates this sub-molecular telekinetic power to change her Phoenix clothes into a set of street clothes. At this level, she is powerful enough to easily defeat a herald of Galactus. She can also create stargates that can transport her to anywhere in the universe instantaneously. As the Phoenix, Jean can resurrect herself after death and is unaffected by the passage of time. Though initially perceived as "borrowing" the powers of the Phoenix Force, due to her original status as a host for the Force, they are entirely her own; Death itself has said that Jean is the rightful owner of those powers. She later becomes one with the Phoenix Force (as opposed to serving as its host) due to her status as an Omega-level mutant with unlimited potential, in which it was revealed that Jean holds the unique role of "White Phoenix of the Crown" among the many past, present, and future hosts of the Phoenix. As the White Phoenix, Jean can manipulate and control whole timelines, as seen when she brought the alternate future of Here Comes Tomorrow into the White-Hot Room. The Phoenix Force allows Jean to revive, absorb, rechannel, and preserve the life-force of any kind of life-form, meaning that she can take life energy from one person and give it to others, heal herself with the same life energy, or even resurrect the dead, since the Phoenix is the sum of all life and death. Gameplay Seth Killian has described Phoenix as a rushdown character, possessing an eight-way dash and effective ranged projectiles. Coupled with her ability to teleport, she has several ways of getting close to an opponent where her attacks are at their most effective. He also referred to Dark Phoenix as being the single most powerful character to ever be featured in a Capcom fighting game. However, like X-23 and Zero, she appears to take damage more heavily than most of the other characters. Use of her Healing Field should be part of her overall strategy, as well as building the Hyper Combo Gauge to maximum. Attacks Support Hyper Combos *'Phoenix Inferno (Level 1) - '''Phoenix channels her cosmic flame around herself and then fires the energy forward, the Phoenix raptor manifesting in a flaming aura. *'Healing Field (Level 1)' - Phoenix creates a flaming orb around herself that rapidly replenishes the red portion of her lifebar in close proximity of an opponent. The field does this regardless of whether or not the opponent blocks it. *'Dark Phoenix (Maximum Level)' - When Phoenix's lifebar is empty and the Hyper Combo Gauge is at Max level, Jean will be surrounded by a massive buildup of Phoenix energy. Jean shouts ''"I can't control it!" and is engulfed in an flaming phoenix-shaped aura, transforming into Dark Phoenix. Her lifebar automatically refills, but then empties slowly again over time. Her attacks are stronger and the Hyper Combo gauge refills much faster than usual. However, she can still sustain damage. Use of the X-Factor can temporarily stop the steady drain on her lifebar. Theme Song thumb|300px|left Trivia *Phoenix / Jean Grey-Summers is unique among the fighters in Marvel Vs Capcom 3 as she doesn't have a specific alignment due to her role as the White Phoenix of the Crown", Magneto has been Evil, Neutral and Good alignment (depending on his goals and story arc) but not all and none of them. However, she still retains her general affiliation with the X-Men. *In Marvel vs. Capcom 3, Phoenix / Jean Grey-Summers is reprised by Jennifer Hale, who previously voiced her in Wolverine and the X-Men. She has also voiced Ophelia, a main character of the Heavy Metal inspired game Brütal Legend '''and '''Samus Aran (mainly the grunts of pain when taking damage) in the Metroid Prime '''Trilogy, as well as '''Sheena Fujibayashi in the original Tales of Symphonia. *When KO'd by a weak attack, Phoenix calls for Scott, also known as Cyclops in the X-Men series. *Pheonix's in-game rival in Marvel vs. Capcom 3 is Mike Haggar, because the reason perhaps in their rivalry is the idea of brute force against the force of mind, a literal Brain VS Brawn theme between their rivalry. Phoenix states that she has destroyed whole planets and communities, whereas Haggar leads and protects a community of his own. *When switching with X-23, Jean calls out her real name, Laura. *During her winning quote in regular Phoenix form, you can see glimpses of red as Jean struggles to contain the malevolent Dark Phoenix entity. Art Work Category:MvC3 Characters Category:X-Men Characters Category:Good Alignment Category:Evil Alignment Category:Marvel Characters Category:Neutral Alignment